Second Star to the Right
by Polkat
Summary: It is the eve of Remus Lupin's eighteenth birthday; it is also the eve of a full moon and, in a fit of inventiveness, Sirius Black has decided to take him up to the astronomy tower to await the dawn of the next day. Total fluff. R


Author's Note: According to my computer I've been working on this since October. I rather suspect that to be a lie but I have definitely been writing this longer than it deserves [since January probably] so I'm very glad it's finished at last. 

Ridiculously fluffy and written mainly because I had this great idea for a birthday present for Remus which Sirius gives him in the last paragraph [which should give you some indication of the narrative structure up until that point.] Also written [nominally at least] for Ali, who is not quite sure if she likes Remus/Sirius but who was born eighteen years ago today and who deserves a story at any rate. 

Hope you enjoy it.

Oh and you should be getting the Han and Leia vibe; I did that on purpose.

* * *

Second Star to the Right _  
For Ali: Moony to my Prongs_

Remus Lupin stumbled over something else and swore as quietly as possible in the other's general direction; his senses had gone into overdrive this close to the full moon and every new bruise seemed to make his skin explode.

It was making him decidedly irritable. 

"You know the idea behind the blindfold was that you were supposed to _lead_ me; not that I was going to fall over every tripping spell we've managed to place along this corridor during six years," he hissed. 

"Sorry," Sirius replied, not sounding sorry at all but remembering to keep his voice down. "And I hate to contradict you Moony," Remus snorted loudly and obviously; Sirius tactfully ignored him. "But the idea _was_ that you wouldn't know where we were going."

"The astronomy tower... Right, I can take this off now." 

Remus stopped, reached up to where Sirius' tie was fastened around his eyes and struggled with the knot. "I recognise my own tripping spells once I've fallen over them. Therefore I am proud to pronounce that in a fit of inventiveness, I would not have thought possible even from you, we're off to the astronomy tower: the place you've brought all your various girlfriends too for the last six years."

"What if I said you were wrong?" Sirius asked in amusement. 

"I'd know you were lying to me and this relationship would be over," he retorted with a smile. "I can hear the portraits down this corridor: that servant girl who fancies you keeps laughing at me. I know where we- WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO THIS KNOT?!" he exclaimed in distress. "I'm going to have a tie wrapped around my head for the rest of my life!"

"I think it looks rather attractive," Sirius remarked with a laugh that suggested he was lying.

"You would," Remus replied dryly. "Take it off or alternately warn me next time you jump over something." 

"Will do…" 

Remus swore again.

"…starting… now."

"You know sometimes I have trouble remembering why I love you."

Warm lips invaded the darkness and Sirius murmured _"anything yet?"_

Remus considered this. "I still think you're a selfish, arrogant prat: in fact I'll need more reminding before I agree to walk any further-"He could almost hear Sirius grin before he leant forward and kissed his lover quickly. 

"I know I am. Come on, the night is young!" He grabbed the other's hand and towed him towards the staircase. "Watch out for the stairs Moony," he advised as the youth walked into the bottom one. 

"This better be the best birthday present anyone has ever been given ever," Remus muttered sullenly as he began to climb. 

"It will be. Duck." 

Remus ducked. "I didn't know there were any rafters in the astronomy tower."

"There aren't. I just thought it would be funny."

"Did your mental age just stop increasing after you reached six?"

"Possibly." Sirius kissed the end of his nose and Remus batted at him affectionately. "Not far." A rush of cold air enfolded them. 

"Alright we're here; you can look now."

"I _can't_ Padfoot," Remus reminded him in exasperation. "The knot won't come undone-"

Piano players' fingers that had never touched an instrument moved deftly over the tie and it fell loose around his face. 

"I hate it when you do that."

The other grinned. "I know." 

The night was clear and frosty and the stars were out in force, speckling the sky like silver freckles while the moon that would be full tomorrow on Remus' birthday shone down, bathing the turret top with its milky half light. Sirius' arms wrapped themselves around his waist and his voice murmured: "so: is it worth it?"

Remus nodded mutely as he took in the sky, the rug that had been missing from the Gryffindor common room for a week that lay next to a large picnic hamper and the two glasses. 

"I couldn't remember whether you liked wine or champagne better so I bought both."

"Good," Remus replied, smiling slightly as Sirius began playing with the bottom of his jumper, gasping as his lover's hands met his skin. "Jesus Christ Padfoot… your hands are freezing."

Remus turned his head towards Sirius who looked like he was about to make some obscene suggestion as to how said hands could be warmed up and shut him up before he could voice it; looping his arms around the other's neck, pulling him in tightly.

"You're shivering," Sirius noted, breaking away. Remus tried to protest that he wasn't, whilst keeping the kiss going but, for once, Sirius was having none of it and hauled off his jumper. "Here take this," he declared gallantly. Remus merely stared at him; stared and then burst out laughing. Padfoot scowled and shock the jumper at him again. _"Remus,"_ he said warningly. 

__

"Sirius," Remus mimicked, still giggling.

"What's so funny?" Sirius demanded, obviously rather put out that Remus should be finding his eighteenth birthday surprise so amusing.

"Well… if I take your jumper I'll probably still be cold _and_ you'll be even colder," he explained. "Sirius did you think this through at all? We could have brought cloaks or something."

"It's April," Sirius insisted. "April equals spring… which means it's _warm_." 

Remus raised an eyebrow; Padfoot's face darkened. "Alright so it's fucking freezing, happy now?" 

His jumper still obstinately hanging from one hand Sirius stormed over to the side of the tower and gazed out over the grounds. Remus sighed and followed him, leaning against his shoulder lightly, smiling as Sirius' arm snaked around his waist. "I just wanted it to be perfect," came the whispered apology. 

"And it's perfect," Remus agreed. "A beautiful view, hopefully very large quantities of alcohol and though it sounds horribly sickly: you're here with me." He leant over and kissed his lover's ear which was all he could reach. "How much more perfect could it get?"

"Well, for a start you could stop drooling in my ears," Sirius grunted with mock ire.

"I'll do that," Remus promised lazily, leaning over and licking the animagus' ear. Sirius tried to move away but Remus was stronger than him and all he could manage was a strangled _"ugh, Moony… please… _stop."

"I think he likes it," Remus laughed then fell over as a large black dog hurtled into him and started licking his face. The dog turned back into Sirius, who smiled down at him. "No more licking or you're spending the evening with a nice warm mutt."

"Maybe I like animals," Remus said with as much dignity as he could manage with Sirius lying on top of him.

"I didn't know your tastes ran that way, Moony," Padfoot leered. "I suppose I should have guessed-"

Remus hit him. "Not like that you sicko." 

__

"I'm not the one who's sick. _You_ fancy animals, remember?" Sirius laughed catching his arm and forcing Remus to retaliate until he had managed to pin his lover to the ground; wolf instincts difficult to suppress within a day of the full moon he heard himself growling deep within his throat the sound humming over Sirius' gentle laughter, the need to dominate, to possess, engulfing any other tamer instincts. 

Without meaning to he leant forward and nipped the skin of Sirius' throat softly where the pulse thrummed, felt Sirius inhaling sharply, tensing beneath him. Remus smiled into his throat, smelling salt and the cheap shampoo that Sirius used now his parents didn't buy it for him and kissed the same spot again, _"Moony,"_ laying delicate kisses along Sirius' jaw until he caught his mouth briefly and rolled away before the wolfish part of him had any other, less acceptable ideas. 

He rose gracefully and moved back to where Sirius had been standing before gazing this time over the grounds.

"This is so wonderful," he remarked wistfully, drinking in the sight of Hogwarts bathed in silver, feeling rather than hearing Sirius rise and stand behind him. "I wish…"

"I know," Sirius squeezed his arm gently. "So do I…" he paused. "No, wait. I wish I had a bloody fire. What was I thinking? You're going to catch pneumonia." 

__

"I'm going to catch-" Remus began, tugging lightly at Sirius' thin school shirt before changing his mind. "Ah, stand back. Your wish is my command."

He removed his wand from his back pocket and tapped the nearest rampart, before moving onto the next one. "Moony-"

"Quiet," Remus snapped, more forcefully than he had intended to, tapping the next stone. 

Sirius watched in bemusement as Remus completed a lap of the turret, arrived back where he had begun and muttered an incantation under his breath. "Now I'm not sure if this will- ah, there we go."

The air around them was growing warmer by the second. Too warm in fact and after a moment of trying to convince himself that the temperature was fine Remus removed his jumper and discarded it by the wall with Sirius'.

"Doesn't this thing have different settings?" Sirius inquired politely, smirking slightly. "Not that I'm complaining if it means you're going to remove your shirt." 

"I'm not." 

__

"Remus," Sirius pouted and started undoing his own shirt until it flapped open around his shoulders. "How can you be so selfish on my birthday?"

"It's _my_ birthday," Remus reminded him, with a smile. 

Sirius consulted his watch. "Actually it's not your birthday for another… ten minutes. So technically it's neither of our birthdays."

"Did you have a point at all during this speech?"

"Possibly. I got kind of lost half way through," Sirius admitted, smiling wolfishly, now extremely close to Remus and fiddling with the buttons on his boyfriend's shirt and sliding it down his arms. "But I still think you'd be happier without this."

"You're probably right," Remus murmured, grinning, into Sirius' lips, wrapping his arms around his lover's, now bare, shoulders, skin against skin, fabricated objections forgotten.

"I know I am."

"Egomaniac."

"Prude."

"Ouch, cutting deep there Siri."

"Mmm, sorry."

"No you aren't."

"I know."

Pulling away slightly Sirius consulted his watch once more. "Almost your birthday. Present time!" he declared enthusiastically, bounding over to one of the telescopes.

"This isn't it?" Remus asked rather surprised and following him.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "I may be cheap and I may be arrogant but that doesn't mean I think I can get away with just shagging you and calling it a present… got you a real present as well."

"Mmm, I like the sound of that _'as well.'_"

Sirius grinned but continued arranging the telescope. "Alright there we are. Take a look through there." 

Dutifully Remus put his face to the eye piece and examined the stars that were now brilliantly clear before him. 

"What do you see?" Sirius whispered behind him.

"Unless I'm much mistaken-"

"Unlikely considering that O you got in the Astronomy O.W.L.S"

"-I'm looking at Canis Major," Remus finished. "Which suggests that you did in fact bring me up here to look at you after all. Am I wrong?"

Sirius laughed. "You know you're not. Through that telescope you can see Canis Major, the constellation which has the good fortune to contain the star Sirius, the brightest object in the sky." 

"Hardly." Remus leant back against him. "I hate to contradict you Paddy but your feeble star has nothing on the moon." He paused. "I wonder what that suggests."

Sirius laughed. "You seem to be suggesting you're brighter than me my dear Moony but _that_ is where you're wrong!"

"How charming of you," Remus remarked dryly. "But I don't see how I can be wrong this time. The moon is definitely brighter than Sirius." He pointed at the moon "Moony brighter than" pointed at the star "Sirius. No contest."

"Hoped you'd say that," Sirius said behind him.

"You did?"

"Moony and Sirius don't go very well together, do they?" Sirius asked, apparently ignoring Remus' last question. "Moony and Padfoot? That's better… but Remus and Sirius?" he kissed the base of Remus' ear. "That's about perfect," he murmured. "Don't you think? Besides," he continued, "you're not the moon."

__

"Sirius-"

"I know you're going to tell me you know that," Sirius said, seriously, "but I don't think you do. Sometimes you let yourself believe what they believe: that you're an impostor here and sooner or later when everyone finds out you'll be an outcast again. And I know it won't make any different for me to say that's wrong Remus but it is. You're so much more than that: funny and sexy and intelligent and moral and wonderful and …well, I love you."

Remus smiled and twisted until his nose touched Sirius. "I know. Love you too."

Sirius kissed him quickly. "That's not the present either though." He leant around Remus and fixed the telescope to a different setting. "Ok… look at that. What do you see?"

Remus looked. "Er… I don't know. Some faint little star I don't recognise."

"_That's_ you," Sirius told him happily.

"Er… what?"

"That star: I had it named for you." He wrapped his arms around Remus' neck and rested his chin on his shoulders. "You are looking at the one and only Remus star."

"You… had a star named after me?"

"Yer. Thought it had a nice sense of poetic justice… it's there just in case you ever forget that Moony isn't all you are because there, albeit faintly, is Remus."

Remus laughed suddenly. "And Remus and Sirius go together much better than Moony and Sirius."

"Yes," Sirius grinned. "I've always thought so."

"I do you love you know… even if you are a stupid, obnoxious prat most of the time, I love you." 

Sirius laughed too and kissed him. "I know. Happy Birthday Remus."

_"Second star to the right and straight on till morning: Neverland."   
~J M Barrie _


End file.
